Newt had used Sedna's QAR recording to groove himself in to her full shift. That meant bird breathing and moss breathing, using the Q to guide the inflow and outflow, as well as the muscle-to-fat shift he already knew.

So he said to her, "I'm ready to learn all your new tricks."

She said, "Good! Let's sit in our recliners and I'll guide you through them." When they were both settled she said, "Go for it!"

He had already done his muscle shift, so he started with the bird lungs. Since he had experienced that in QAR it was pretty easy. When he was done he nodded to Sedna. She said, "Okay, now do the do."

He nodded again, and started. That was pretty easy too.

Sedna saw the moss appear, and said, "Good. Now breathe."

He was already breathing. But then he got that she meant through the hair. He realized that, in turn, this meant that the Q was invoked not just for the shift. Invoking it became a subtle but necessary part of breathing, to get the full effect.

He gave her a look that meant, How. She gave him back a look that meant, You already know.

He did know. Breathing through his new hair meant invoking the Q with each breath, both to draw oxygen from the hair into his new lungs and to guide his exhaled carbon dioxide and moisture into it. He found he was able to do this when he thought about it. He looked at Sedna and nodded again, to let her know it worked.

She said, "Okay. Now just keep doing that. Keep breathing through the moss. Once you have it grooved in, you'll be able to keep breathing that way without much attention. Kind of like snorkeling."

The comparison was apt. He realized they were done, and got out of the chair. Then he walked around the apartment practicing his moss breathing. Sedna kept smiling at him.

As he practiced, he thought of how it really was a bit like snorkeling, but then he began to realize that it was a bit like doing a lot of other things that didn't require much attention. Walking. Flying a drone. Many  things that were done out of habit.  

In fact, once he was aware of this, it began to dawn on him that invoking the Q was a subtle but necessary part of maintaining the whole physical universe. A necessity so universal that it was easy to ignore, to overlook, and eventually to forget about altogether. Another one of those things that everyone knows at some level, but doesn't need to be consciously aware of because it is so reliable.

When he looked at Sedna again, he was glowing. She glowed right back at him.

He said. "Wow. It's like I knew this all along. I just hadn't quite sorted out what it meant."

"What does it mean?"

"It means that the rediscovery of the Q with the development of the QAR quantum interface was the founding reality of our new age. It was shaman awareness writ large. Cosmic entanglement." 

Sedna added, "That the Q is the source of reality itself is an idea that is still hard to encompass."

Newt said, "You know what? Having Mister Green around helped me. It seems to me now that only by isolating your awareness from the entire physical universe, as he has done, could you finally understand its immensity. And the limits to your engagement with that immensity."

Sedna watched Newt, aware of what was going through his mind. It was a willingness to admit to all of this that was required of him now. The little body shift he had already learned was a baby step. It was a step beyond his former intellectual awareness of the Q, but it had not quite encompassed the intimate implications. This ongoing influence on the behavior of the very air he breathed required more of him, a deeper awareness.

To Newt, emulating Sedna's full Mars shift now meant emulating her understanding of these implications. The edge of the Q was the interface between accepted reality and possible futures. All beings participated in the creation of the Q. It was a liquid interface, between the boiling future and the frozen past.

Like her, he now knew that all beings of whatever magnitude participate in the solidification of the Q, because every being decides its own present state. Most often it was an expected continuation of its past state. But environmental pressures influenced the details of this continuation. The next instant of existence is by definition a departure from the previous instant. Otherwise it would have no nextness. It would be no new entanglement at all. No change in time, because change defines time.

Sedna was with Newt in spirit as he went through these thoughts, this epiphany, and internalized this new understanding. She did not attempt to participate. She knew that it had to be an intensely personal experience. But she was very pleased that her QAR recording had initiated it.

When Newt had mastered the shifts, they both made  the trip between the tube and the dome in full Martian mode. In fact in the coming days they made a habit of it. For this they would use one of the small taxis that were available for transporting people to and from the orbiting space bolas. In their white bear hair topped with green moss bushes they looked similar to space-suited travelers. But the difference could be startling.

Newt began to envision a strap-on DDM pack so they could make the little trip from the farm tube to their dome without using the taxi, and not have to walk the whole way. But he shelved that idea. At times it might be too much like riding a bicycle on a freeway.

Once in the warm dome air they shifted out of their fur coats. But they kept the moss hair. It made them feel more intimate with the plants they were tending.

Mister Green approved.